pretty unnoticeable for most of the staff.”
Keira pursed her lips. “We’ll see,” she replied.
Nina looked a little panicked, Keira thought, and she watched as her friend made eye contact with Bryn as if trying to prompt her to take over. Bryn suddenly lit up as though she’d been struck with a thought.
“I have an amazing idea,” she said, her eyes widening.
“Why do I get the feeling I am not going to like this one bit?” Keira replied, narrowing her own.
“There’s this awesome party thing at Gino’s tonight, you know, that authentic Italian restaurant in the city,” Bryn said. “It’s Halloween themed. Actually, it’s All Souls’ Day themed, which is an Italian holiday I’ve never heard of but it sounds super creepy and they’re taking it really seriously at Gino’s. It’s going to be half masquerade ball, half gothic meal. It sounds crazy but in a super cool way.”
Keira squinted her eyes further. Bryn was blabbering. “Go on…” she urged her sister.
“Here’s the thing,” Bryn said. “I was invited there for a date by this guy I met the other night, Malcolm. He wanted to see what it was all about, you know, something different to try. I obviously said sure, you know me, I’ll try anything once. Anyway, so he mentioned today that he has a friend who’s single and wondered if I knew anyone to double date with. I was going to invite Tasha, but why don’t you and I go instead? Now you’re back on the market.”
Keira didn’t even need a second to consider Bryn’s proposition. She shook her head with an emphatic no. “Absolutely not,” she said.
Nina leaned forward, seemingly on board. “I know this amazing costume store,” she said. “You could get a full-on ball gown, gloves, mask, the lot.”
Keira shot her a withering glance. “Why don’t you go on the double date if you’re so into the idea?”
Nina closed her mouth. Bryn took over as lead cajoler again.
“Just come for the food at least,” Bryn said. “Free meal. Fancy food. Dancing. Just think of it as a night out for the two of us, with just a couple of guys tagging along footing the bill. You don’t even have to tell them your real name if you don’t want to, or even take off your mask. It could be a night of anonymity. You could invent a whole new persona.”
Keira laughed. “Let me guess, you’ve done that before?”
Nina jumped in then. “Please, darling, everyone’s done that before. If you haven’t been on a date and pretended you work for the FBI or that you’re an heir to a billion-dollar inheritance then you haven’t really lived.”
Shaking her head, Keira glanced out the window again. She looked at the people milling through the streets. Some of the stores already had Halloween decorations in their windows. She spotted a goth couple walking down the street – the woman in a black lace dress carrying a parasol, the man on a leather lead. Only in New York City, she thought to herself, amused.
Life was supposed to be about embracing the crazy, she reminded herself. Hadn’t she told herself that exact thing just this morning?
“Fine,” she said, turning back to Bryn with a sigh of resignation. “I’ll come to your ball.”
Bryn was right about one thing, Keira discovered later that evening; Gino’s looked amazing. The whole restaurant had been decorated to look like a gothic castle, the tables pushed to the perimeter so that the middle part was a dance floor. There was an incredibly creepy vibe, with old Italian folk music, waiters in velvet suits, and of course, everyone in masquerade masks.
If it had just been the two of them, Keira would have had a great night. But unfortunately, they were sharing their evening with Malcolm, Bryn’s date, and Glen, Keira’s date. They must have been two of the most boring men in the world.
Keira forked her pasta, barely able to keep herself awake, as Glen explained more details about his career in accounting. Work chat annoyed Keira at the best of times, but when it involved math the boringness was stepped up another notch. Not to mention he hadn’t actually asked her a single question about her job.
There was a sudden lull in the conversation and Keira sat up as though startled awake.
“So, what do you do in your spare time?” she asked Glen, desperate to steer the conversation elsewhere.
Glen took a long time to answer, another thing Keira took as a bad sign. Who didn’t know what hobbies they had? Or what they enjoyed doing other than their jobs?
“I watch sports,” he said, finally.
“Watch,” Keira repeated. “Not play?”
Glen laughed. “Hell no. I don’t want an injury. I prefer to be a spectator.”
“That’s…” Keira struggled for a word. The one she landed on was probably the opposite of what she meant. “…interesting.”
“What about you?” Glen asked.
It was the first time he’d asked her about herself, and Keira was almost surprised. “Oh, well, I’m in journalism so I spend a lot of my spare time reading,” she began.
Glen cut her off immediately. “I read, too. The Wall Street Journal mainly.”
Realizing her time to speak had been snatched from her, Keira felt her chest sink. She prodded her pasta again. “Cool.”
Bryn leaned across the table then. “We were just talking about plans,” she said. “What we want to achieve in five years. Keira, what about you?”
If Bryn had asked her yesterday Keira would have been certain that what she wanted in the next five years was to spend as much time as possible with Shane. Buy their dream house together. Maybe even marry and have some kids. But that dream was dashed now.
Keira just shrugged. “I’d like to travel. See the world. In five years’ time I want to have set foot on every continent at least once.”
Bryn clapped. “That’s a great one, sis.”
Glen scoffed. “Traveling is so overrated these days, now that we have the technology to map everything. I mean why spend hours in an aluminum tube flying through the sky, polluting the atmosphere, when you can see the world from the comfort of your own home? Virtual reality is in its infancy at the moment, but within five years it’s going to take off. A fifty-dollar headset will take the place of hundreds of dollars wasted on flights.”
Only Malcolm nodded in agreement, his expression revealing that he found Glen’s point to be thought provoking. Bryn, on the other hand, looked horrified by his statement and she flashed Keira a look of apology. Keira just gave her sister a deadpan look, as if to say I said this would be terrible.
“What about you then, Glen?” Bryn asked, floundering to save the conversation. “If you’re not a fan of traveling, what do you think your next five years will look like?”
Everyone turned their attention to the accountant. He cracked his knuckles.
“I’ve got it all planned out,” he said confidently. He pointed at his index finger. “A wife in a year.” Then he moved onto his next finger. “Our dream family home
